Evidence of meeting #31 for Natural Resources in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was biofuels.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Distinguished Professor and Director, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
I could leave it open for others to comment.
My point was you use policies that give you the cheapest possible option and you don't use too much government throwing money at things. I think my comments have been pretty clear on that point. I would argue that any political party that was interested in doing this as inexpensively as possible would agree with the policy recommendations I made in my opening comments.
Thanks.
Conservative
Energy Systems Architect, The Transition Accelerator
I'm a biologist by trade. Between 1998 and 2008, I set up and ran the BIOCAP Canada Foundation. It was all about biological solutions to climate change. I was very supportive of biofuels at that time because you could drop in fuels and they could result in incremental movement toward a lower carbon energy system. I must say I am very concerned. Now we are talking not about incremental change; we're talking about getting to net zero.
I have very grave concerns about biofuels. We don't have enough residual biomass to make the biofuels, so we need to plant and grow biomass, which means there are going to be impacts on biodiversity, food production and land use. Canada may be able to do it, but the rest of the world can't. We are a country with huge biological resources.
The rest of the world—most of the world—is very clear that they're not looking at biofuels. You can pick Finland and Sweden and a few other countries that maybe are doing it, but....
A real concern is—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you. I have to stop you.
Thanks, Mr. Zimmer.
Mr. Serré, you're going to be the last one. I can probably squeeze out up to three minutes for you.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses as well.
Mr. Layzell, I want to follow up on a point my fellow member Mr. Weiler raised. For the benefit of the committee and the federal government, can you provide more details on the recommendations to achieve low-carbon or carbon-free buildings? You mentioned British Columbia.
What specific recommendations were made to lower or eliminate carbon from homes and buildings?
Energy Systems Architect, The Transition Accelerator
I would argue that at the start, we need to test different technologies. We don't have an economically viable solution today for space heating that is low carbon.
I would argue that we need to be increasing the carbon taxes on the fuels we use for space heating. We should be encouraging heat pumps in regions where it makes sense. Obviously, they are very efficient and have a lot of opportunity. We can, hopefully, bring the cost down.
We also need to be looking at putting hydrogen into our natural gas, up to maybe 15% or 20%, and using that for moving towards decarbonization. We also need to be piloting some pure hydrogen heating in our building structures.
I think that in the transition pathway to a net-zero future, space heating is probably in the 2030s and 2040s. The real focus and opportunity today is in transport and some of the heavier industries. It's a timing issue.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you. I don't have much time. I apologize.
You mentioned increasing carbon pricing. Mr. Jaccard talked a bit about that.
Mr. Jaccard, I probably have about a minute or so left. When you talk about regulation, pricing, policies and moving forward. what would be your recommendations to this committee and to the federal government? Let's say you're the minister of finance and you're preparing the budget for 2022. What would be your recommendations to this committee on how to meet our targets?
Distinguished Professor and Director, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
I would offer to the government the suggestion of a rising carbon price or regulations of the kind, if you look through my testimony, that I've been talking about. They dominate in California. Eighty-five per cent of their policies involve the kind of regulations I was talking about.
I'm indifferent. You can do regulations that are about as efficient as carbon pricing. It's fine to be indifferent to that, but you do need to regulate or have a rising price. Otherwise, fossil fuels are wonderful. They'll destroy the planet but they provide fairly high-quality energy. Also, their price is going to fall as we switch away from them. They're going to get even cheaper, so you have to have the regulations in pricing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Serré.
We're going to have to stop here.
I will say thank you to our witnesses. That was a highly interesting panel. Unfortunately, we always have a limit on the time we can spend on these matters, but we do appreciate it.
Committee members, we will suspend. You'll have to log off and log back onto the in camera session.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
